1867–1946

Summary

Frederick Carnes Gilbert (born Cohen) was the pioneer Adventist missionary to the Jewish people, a Russian-Polish Orthodox Jew converted to Christ in Boston in 1889 who founded the Adventist Jewish Mission, organized the Jewish Department of the North American Foreign Department in 1911, served as Superintendent of the Jewish work for the Seventh-day Adventist Church for forty years, and was elected one of the first General Field Secretaries of the General Conference in 1922. Born to Falk and Miriam Cohen at London, England, on September 30, 1867 — refugees who had fled anti-Semitism in Suwalki, Poland, and Germany — he emigrated to America in May 1886, was baptized into the Adventist Church on April 16, 1889, and labored fifty-five years as one of the most beloved evangelists, authors, and elder-statesmen of the church. Ellen White held his work in unusually high regard, writing in 1904 that “We need one hundred such men where we now have one” (19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 10). He died at Takoma Park, Maryland, on August 31, 1946.

From Suwalki to South Lancaster (1867–1894)

Per Benjamin Baker’s article in the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, Frederick Carnes Cohen was born in London, England, on September 30, 1867, to Falk and Miriam Cohen — Jewish refugees from Suwalki, Poland (then a territory of the Russian Empire), who had fled to Germany and then to England in search of tolerance. He was raised in strict Orthodoxy, trained by a rabbi in the Talmud Torah, had a Bar Mitzvah, and entertained a career as a rabbi. His father died when he was fifteen. In May 1886 he sailed alone for America, where he changed his surname to Gilbert. After a year of work in a New York City clothes factory and a season of unemployment, hunger, and friendlessness, he relocated to Boston, found lodging in the Adventist home of G. F. Fiske, and through the silent witness of the Fiske family came to faith in Christ. He was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church on April 16, 1889, by Orville Orlando Farnsworth — disowned by his Jewish family, attacked by his factory co-workers, but unshaken in his conviction. He enrolled at South Lancaster Academy in 1890 and graduated in 1894. On March 16, 1896, he married Ella May Graham — born July 11, 1865, in Mansfield, Connecticut, daughter of two early Sabbatarian Adventists, baptized by S. N. Haskell in 1877, and a charter student of South Lancaster Academy.

The Boston Jewish Mission and Gilbert’s Public Ministry (1894–1907)

In June 1894 Gilbert opened public evangelistic work among the twenty thousand Jewish people of Boston, preaching in Yiddish in open-air meetings, debating in synagogues, and publishing his first tract, Hebrews, and Rights of Conscience. He was ordained at the New England Conference camp meeting at West Newton, Massachusetts, in June 1898. In late 1905 he and A. E. Place rented a building in the south end of Boston for a Jewish Mission, which was dedicated on April 17, 1906 — the largest dedicated initiative the denomination had then undertaken among the Jewish people. Per ESDA, the Mission held religious meetings, Sabbath School and church services, provided medical care, took in orphans, fed the poor, offered sewing classes, published Gilbert’s tracts and a monthly magazine The Good Tidings of the Messiah, and distributed literature; outdoor meetings drew rocks and bottles, and police were sometimes present.

Ellen White’s Personal Estimate of His Work

Ellen White’s letter of 1904, after her conversation with Gilbert: “I had a talk with Brother Gilbert. I cannot forbid or discourage him in his work. We need one hundred such men where we now have one. The message must go into the churches; and if this is one of the ways, we will say, God be praised, and not discourage anyone who can preach the Word” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 19, Letter 391, 1904, par. 10; refcode 19LtMs, Lt 391, 1904, par. 10).

Ellen White’s letter of 1906 commending the Boston work: “We hear that something is now being done in Boston. We are rejoiced to learn, through a report in a recent Review, of Elder L. S. Wheeler’s work as pastor of the Boston church, and of the work of his faithful co-laborers. We are also pleased to learn that Elder F. C. Gilbert has been laboring in Everett, a suburb. We hope that those in charge of the work in New England will co-operate with the Melrose Sanitarium managers in taking aggressive steps to do the work that should be done in Boston” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 21, Letter 148, 1906, par. 10; refcode 21LtMs, Lt 148, 1906, par. 10).

Ellen White’s 1903 letter to Gilbert himself, preserved in This Day with God: “O that our people could realize what advantages would be theirs if they would look constantly to Jesus!” (This Day with God, p. 96, par. 6; refcode TDG 96.6).

The Jewish Department (1907–1922)

Per ESDA, Gilbert was named secretary of the Jewish Department of the Central New England Conference in 1907; on March 25, 1911, that department was reorganized under the General Conference’s North American Foreign Department with Gilbert as its first Superintendent. By 1911 he had also released his autobiography, From Judaism to Christianity and Gospel Work Among the Hebrews (South Lancaster, Massachusetts: Good Tidings Press), and his pivotal apologetic Practical Lessons from the Experience of Israel for the Church of To-day (1902, expanded 826-page second edition 1914).

The 1913 General Conference Bulletin records L. R. Conradi’s introduction of his report: “L. R. Conradi: We will continue the reports of the Foreign Department of the General Conference begun this morning. The next report is the Jewish work. This will be led by Brother F. C. Gilbert. The speakers will have ten minutes each” (General Conference Bulletin, May 20, 1913, p. 58, par. 17; refcode GCB May 20, 1913, page 58.17).

The same Bulletin’s general report on the church’s foreign work to that General Conference recorded the fruit Gilbert’s labors had then begun to yield: “Another encouraging feature is the increasing interest among the Jews. The earnest work of Elder F. C. Gilbert, and the literature that has been circulated” (General Conference Bulletin, May 20, 1913, p. 53, par. 6; refcode GCB May 20, 1913, page 53.6).

General Field Secretary (1922–1944) and Death (1946)

At the 1922 General Conference Session the position of General Field Secretary was created; Gilbert was elected as one of the first five and moved with Ella from Massachusetts to Takoma Park, Maryland. Per ESDA, his international itinerary included extended visits to the Far Eastern Division (1923, including the Great Kanto Earthquake which he survived aboard ship from China to Japan on September 1, 1923), the Inter-American Division (1934–1935), India (1939), and the South American Division (1943). Through twenty-two years in the office he wrote scores of articles, several books — including Divine Predictions of Mrs. Ellen G. White Fulfilled (1922) and Messiah in His Sanctuary (1937) — and was a tireless evangelist, fundraiser, and elder-statesman. In 1933 the General Conference granted him a two-week vacation, the first he had taken in twenty-five years.

A severe stroke in 1943 marked the beginning of the end. Ella died early in 1944 after almost fifty years of marriage. Gilbert resigned as Superintendent of the Jewish Department on December 21, 1944. He died at Takoma Park on the Sabbath morning of August 31, 1946, in his seventy-ninth year. The General Conference Committee minutes describe him as one who “was an earnest, devoted worker, counting no task too arduous to undertake.”

The four Gilbert children were Ruth Marjorie Miller (1897–1979), Miriam G. Tymeson (1902–1984, founder of the John Nevins Andrews School at Takoma Park), William Paul (1903–1958), and Louis B. (1910–?).